Penelope Rutledge, you have twice made the mistake of misspelling my name as "Kreuger" instead of "Krueger". This would be of little importance to most people, but I'm not most people. I'm a mass murdering psychopath and I take thigs like that personally. The least little thing can set me to slashing. Lucky for you my name is on the TSA's Do Not Fly List so you're beyond my reach in your fancy English manor house. But if you ever visit Ohio, be afraid. Be very afraid.

You are quite correct, Rapparee, I did use the wrong term when I said "dueling foils". I was thinking of the set of crossed rapiers that are mounted on the library wall. Then there are also the cavalry sabers in the study. Either would do well to dispatch Mr Kreuger or anyone else rash enough to invade this house...assuming they got by Baskerville, our Doberman Pinscher.

That makes twice that I have been wrong about something in the last 10 years or so. The other time was when I had the exquisitely bad judgment to marry Winston...he's in London right now, thankfully, no doubt boring someone absolutely to death over a glass of port. I plan to make some changes in his absence. That stupid elephant's foot stool he brought back from India has simply got to go, and along with it that wretched framed photograph of Mata Hari that occupies much of the west wall in Winston's smoking room.

And I won't even mention the time Pap Finn, Huckleberry's old man, threatened to spit tobacco juice on my new white sneakers. No, wait! I've gone and mentioned it after I said I wouldn't. How do you unmention something?

Hey, Penny, there is no such thing as a "dueling foil." The foil is a weapon used in fencing, a sport, which can be fashioned to record a hit (or touch) electronically. It has a blunt tip. A dueling weapon can be a rapier, a small sword, a colichemarde, a saber, a messer, or any of the various weapons which have been used to skewer or cut an opponent -- and that is not sport. The epee, used in sport, evolved from the rapier and its antecedents and successors, and like the foil it has a blunt tip and can be rigged for electronic scoring. Of course, the saber (again, used in sport) evolved from the weapon carried by the cavalry and probably reached its zenith with the weapon designed by George Patton (US Model of 1913) -- just in time for it to be abandoned as a cavalry weapon.

And then there was the time, around 1972, that Billy Pilgrim, the unstuck-in-time protagonist of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five attempted to highjack my car and force me to drive to Tralfamadore so he could bang Montana Wildhack. I explained to him that a Volkswagen Beetle is not a spaceship, and that we could never get to Tralfamadore in it. I would have suggested we try to hitchhike, but The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had not yet been written. So, I explained to Billy that, in Tralfamadorian terms, he had always banged Montana Wildhack, would always bang Montana Wildhack, and was, in fact, banging Montana Wildhack at that very moment, though not in the front seat of my VW. He seemed okay with that, so we went out for a beer instead.

Only a completely demonic fiend utterly without judgment, wisdom or moral scruples would threaten violence on an innocent person in order to get him or her to re-marry their ex-spouse! What on Earth could Mr Kreuger's motivation for doing so have been, other than to make your day as miserable as possible? I think your response to him was quite appropriate, Bee-dubya-ell, and I'd have done the same, I'd have called his bluff...or I'd have run him through with one of the dueling foils, assuming it was well within reach. The direct approach is often the best.

I'm not overly concerned about being threatened with annihilation by Chongo. I've been threatened by fictional characters before. Why, in 1987 I was threatened with disembowelment by Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street unless I remarried my ex-wife. Well, Freddy's scary, but my ex-wife is downright horrifying. When I told Freddy I'd rather see my guts splattered on the sidewalk than spend ten minutes in the same room with my ex, he just walked away in a huff.

Eat a chimp??? Cor! I wouldn't eat a fecking chimp if I was bloody well paid to! Filthy creat'rs! I would wager that the bastards are full of fleas, ticks, and other awful vermin loik that. Absolutely disgusting! If there was a dead chimp layin' in me backyard or out in the street I would call for rubbish pickup roight away. No butcher shop in 'Ull would ever stock chimp meat. It's unfinkable! And if they did, I would boycott the fecking store! I can put up wif cat meat, 'orse meat, and I'd even eat dog meat if I 'ad to, but DON'T tell me to eat chimp!!!!!!!! I'd bloody well thump anyone 'oo suggested such a thing to me!

Yes, I'm sure he'll spend quite a bit of time investigating that, Amos, gathering incriminating evidence, and deciding whether or not to have you banana boarded (an interrogational procedure that involves force feeding 50 or more ripe bananas from BOTH ends to a suspect who is strapped down on an unsanded plywood board until he reveals all...). (Women are spared this treatment, because Chongo is a gentleman when it comes to the ladies...but you're a man...so expect no mercy.)

gnu....you may think YOUR time is valuable, man, but consider how valuable Chongo's time is! He's a presidential candidate, a primate rights advocate, a simian celebrity, a courageous champion of the right of apes and humans to engage in holy (or secular) matrimony, AND a streetwise warrior in the ongoing battle against crime on the gritty streets of the Windy City, Chicago! He has to deal with gun mobs, drug dealers, shylocks, apeicidal gorillas, closet specists, B & E specialists, and shady ladies of little virtue so people like YOU can live in relative peace and safety. Match those credentials, mister. I know you can't. :)

Oh dear me. The violence! I am distraught. Not that I have been traught for a while, given the incessant imaginary vitriol, though I do skip a lot of posts which I know are simply a waste of my valuable time.

I'm thinking the tenderizing of the chimp would be best accomplished by beating it for an hour or so with an extra heavy meat tenderizer mallet. Whether the beating should be done pre- or post-mortem is a matter of personal taste, but the way I figure it is, why waste a bullet? If you're already going to beat the shit out of the thing, just let the hammer do the dispatching and tenderizing at the same time.

Hmm. I think he's (Chongo is) quite possibly getting genuinely upset this time. This could lead to a bunch of broken furniture, some ugly scenes at Duffy's later tonight, and all kinds of possible mayhem. I'm glad I won't be there.

Cheap wine and chlorine bleach, followed by a week-long soak in oxygen bleach. Run over the meat eight or ten times with a metal-lugged bulldozed (or ask your local tank outfit to oblige) for tenderizing, followed by about six months soak in vinegar and herbs. Sear in a pan of hot butter and garlic, and give to the hazmat team for proper disposal. Do NOT throw out or bury yourself! In fact, don't touch it without wearing a suit that's Ebola-safe. Incineration at temperatures greater than 3,500 degrees F. required.

You people are all gonna pay. Just wait. I would pity you for what is gonna happen to you in coupla short years, but you don't deserve my pity. As for you, Bee-Dub, you dumb witless jerk, we are gonna reserve the "special treatment" for you. You won't even be good material to use for dog food when it's over. I am talkin' scorched earth policy, gruntface! You will be reduced to a freakin' grease spot on the carpet! You will be ANNIHILATED!!!!!!!!

Rather than contribute to poetic blarney, let me ask: does any of you have a really good marinade? I'd think this particular chimp would be tough and stinky, so you need to tenderize and deodorize simultaneously.

"Stuffed bonobo flambé"? NO! We don't eat bonobos, only common chimps! Bonobos are way cooler than Pan troglodytes.

If Chongo were a bonobo, he wouldn't be such an asshole. He'd get laid regularly and wouldn't need to resort to all the tough-guy posturing that makes him such a jerk. He'd live in Marin County instead of Chicago. He'd smoke sensemilla instead of drinking rotgut whiskey. He'd spend summer weekends surfing and winter vacations skiing at Tahoe. He'd eat sushi! If Chongo were a bonobo, I would vote for him for president!

Oh your pate de fois is sure dandy and fine And duck a l'orange, with appropriate wine But if youre seeking a meal that will rattle your mind Eat a chimp!

You can braise boulognon til the cows start to spoon And dine on fine cheeses sent straight from Rangoon But for sauce that will send you straight over the moon, Eat a chimp!

There's nothing quite like it for texture and smell ANd a faint overtone of a dingly dell! IF you need to delight the young gourmand from Hell, Eat a chimp!

You can stew him or fry him, serve him cold, serve him hot! You can simmer his bones in a three-day crock pot! All these reasons to do it, and not one to not! For a family reunion, it will please the whole lot! Eat a chimp!

So, you admit to murderin' an innocent Chimp, do you? Well, yer gonna pay for it, mister. There ain't no place you can run and no place you can hide. You will be hunted down and exterminated like worthless, specist vermin.

Went cowboy shooting today and did pretty well. We only shot three course of fire because some of the shooters were sick -- probably the "stomach flu" that's been around here. I did okay, not the top and not the bottom, but I've never missed with a shotgun and haven't missed with rifle in the last six months or so. But a really exciting thing happened: a chimpanzee showed up and we had barbeque after all. The cowboys were relieved!

Yeah, guns! Terrible things! There sure never was any trouble in the world till those stinkin' guns came along, was there? No sir. And you can't trust ANYONE who owns a gun! Why, they all oughta be shot, that's what I say. Right, Rap? This is why I always carry a loaded gun and a LOT of extra ammo everywhere I go, coz I know there are all those nutcases out there who own and carry guns and I gotta be prepared to blow 'em away the moment they present a threat, right? It don't take a degree in rocket science to figger out these things, you just need a little common sense...and a gun. Preferably several guns. And maybe a bulletproof vest.

If the cars are from the 'hood she could fix the problem permanently by caulking the gas cap/door with a tube of industrial-strength superglue. Even better is to find the car unlocked and the ignition switch unguarded when you just happen to have you superglue with you. These things also would well on motorcycles.

I finally joined a neighborhood newsletter forum, but have regretted it almost from the moment I hit the "send" button. People with small ideas and who eschew knowledge about the world around them. People who want to kill snakes and June bugs, and one cretin who wants to sell us her funeral insurance policies. I reported her as inappropriate. What's the point of being on one of these lists if you can't piss off a few people? They do it to me, so I do it back.

MOM doesn't join this kind of list, she just sits on the porch with her .22 rifle and shoots out the brake lights of cars that drive by and piss her off. Fix the muffler or get a ticket for having a brake light out.

Ever try to throw a skeeter into a web? I never did. One night, Lewis showed me it can't be done. I never did try it. Just watched Lewis show me it can't be done. Odd eh? I mean, I hate skeeters but I wouldn't do that even if I could, which I can't on accounta you can't throw skeeters into a web. Ya just can't. Somehow, they don't get "caught". Even if ya could, I wouldn't. That would be kinda cruel eh? I'd sooner swat the little bastards.

MWahahaha. Sly, mousy information mongers, tucked in their cocoons of data threads like iddy-widdy silkworms, pondering the guileless, sexless, sweatless and heartless collations of past pontifications. If these are indeed the secret rulers of the Universe, then the universe is a pretty thin gruel, a pasty pottage, a wan and waning whimper in the breast of a fallen Spirit.

Havoc? I was raised on Havoc! Went straight from mother's milk to 160 proof aged in the barrel Havoc. And the other 40 proof that wasn't Havoc was a fragrant mix of Desperation, Desolation, Deprivation and Destitution with a shot of Habanero pepper sauce for some added zing.

So, I'm not afraid of a little Havoc. But you can have that 52225 number anyway 'cause you were a Librarian and while Havoc, Desperation, Desolation, Deprivation and Destitution don't scare me, Librarians are another matter entirely.

By the way, 52225 is mine. My parents long ago left it to me in their wills. We were poor and it was all they could leave me, their oldest and best looking and most intelligent child. My brothers got 52226 and 52227, respectively, and my sister was given 65556. So be aware that if I don't get 52225 my mommy and daddy will Wreak Havoc upon you.

IMO, the best way to prevent the ills of retirement is to become a working artist and sell your work at art fairs. You get the advantages of retirement (basically nobody besides yourself [and your SO] telling you what to do and when to do it) and the advantages of work (basically not feeling like a useless piece of refuse). Plus, you get to travel, associate with interesting people, and play music behind your booth if business is slow. Please note that the last item only applies to those who play reasonably quiet instruments. Bagpipers and trumpeters need not apply.

Don't, MMario. You'll be busier than ever AND you'll end up dealing with doctors, inhabiting hospitals, and trying to circumvent surgeons. Everyone will say, "Oh, he's retired so he isn't doing anything else" and even if you say NO!!! loudly and often you'll find that they are deaf.

Here's a better way: agree and make a botch of it. Then they won't ask you again and your life will be your own to do what needs to be done with the medical types (see above).

Session tonight! Maybe. Last one was with Amos in two Augusts past. I have lubricated. I am well oiled. I may even attempt to play an instrument or two. And even sing! I shall point out to my guest Amos' empty cigarette package and butts in the ashtray in the living room as proof that Amos actually played a house concert here. Thanks again, Amos and your cousin, for visiting. This time, it is a cousin of mine so I shant clean the house like I had to do for your fancy ass, A.